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Linux doesn’t have a CEO. Consequently, there’s no annual keynote hosted by a charismatic alpha male. But if it did, and if there were a conference covering the first half of this year, the first speech would start with three words: ‘Linux is winning’.

Firstly, a market research firm in the US called The NPD Group revealed that sales of Google’s Android platform overtook those of Apple’s iPhone in the first quarter of 2010, propelling itself into second place behind the waning RIM. Android is becoming increasingly competitive, spanning both the smartphone and the emerging tablet markets, with devices from Dell and HP on the near horizon. This might be why Apple has started a patent infringement lawsuit against HTC, using many of its Android-based phones as physical exhibits in its litigation.

Secondly, Google announced its intention to open source the VP8 video codec. This was acquired when it bought On2 earlier in the year and it will be used alongside Vorbis and the MKV container to create Google’s WebM video format. This is vitally important for Linux. The nascent H.264 format, as used by Apple and many HTML5 video streams, is encumbered by patents, and current open-source implementations live under the shadow of legislation. VP8 and WebM have the potential to match it for quality, and while WebM will undoubtedly attract similar litigious trouble, having an umbrella the size of Google should satisfy many Linux distributions, especially when Mozilla, Opera and Adobe have already pledged their support.

Finally, the UK’s new coalition government has published its Programme for Government. There are two points in the section on Transparency that are great news for free software. One states, “We will create a level playing field for open-source software,” while the other adds, “We will ensure that all data published by public bodies is published in an open and standardised format, so that it can be used easily and with minimal cost by third parties.” If these promises come true, it will transform attitudes to open-source software and Linux, and hopefully open the door for its use within government and schools, two areas where it’s ideal.

Many of us used to think that for Linux to be judged a success, it had to be installed and running on more desktop computers than Microsoft Windows. And there are great swathes of Linux users who still feel the same way. But the world of computing has changed. There’s more than one way of judging the success of something that started as just a good idea.

Windows, Linux and OS X are survivors. They’ve lasted this long because they exist within their own ecosystems. Linux, for example, is fed by a curious mixture of enterprise investment, embedded hardware vendors and a community brimming full of zealous commitment. There’s a low-cost threshold to entry and a subsystem that maintains itself with very little investment. It’s these factors that have shaped how it looks, how it feels and how it’s operated.

The ecosystems inhabited by both Microsoft and Apple are equally well-adapted to their environments. The former is the domain of the utilitarians, offering straight functionality for an up-front price. The latter is an increasingly important fusion of fashion and function. But things have changed. The borders between the ecosystems have become indistinct. Apple has surpassed Microsoft in market value, winning thousands of new fans through it’s no-fuss interfaces and lower prices. There’s a shift in the balance of power.

And thanks to Google, Linux is becoming less free and less open, proving that in the new markets where it’s having the most commercial success, it’s becoming more like Apple. ROMs are encrypted and need to be rooted for user-hacking, third-party applications have to be sold through a single vendor and personal information is held in the cloud by a sole provider. If Linux wants a taste of similar success, it might find it if it makes similar concessions to a user’s freedom.

But then we’d have failed. The Linux ecosystem would have become too polluted, bogged down by sponsored kernel additions, paid-for support and short life cycles. It may be a commercial success, but no longer an active one. Our hypothetical CEO might make further compromises, and make judgements against the interest of Linux users. Which is exactly why we don’t have a CEO, and exactly why the success of open-source software is so difficult to judge using the same language as its competitors.

With the immense popularity of offshore outsourcing, more and more industry sectors are adopting it as an inherent strategical function. One of the major industries that rely on the outsourcing model is – Medical & Health Care Industry. Be it clinical research or trials or medical transcription tasks or simple data entry work thereof, offshore outsourcing has become a norm than an exception.

However, is outsourcing of medical records and patient information really safe?

Security Challenges in Medical Data Entry Outsourcing

Security of data is one of the key challenges faced by the offshore outsourcing industry. With stories about recent cases of data leakage and misuse of information, the very concept of offshore outsourcing is under scrutiny.

Health care facilities that outsource their medical data entry works have absolutely no idea as to who is actually doing their work. There are cases wherein the outsourcing service provider sub-contracts the work to smaller companies and thereby lose control over the end transcriber. This can result into serious consequences for the client.

What Needs To Be Done?

To cut a long story short, everything depends upon your choice of service provider. In order to avoid any such mis-happenings, you need to ensure that, while outsourcing the medical data entry tasks, you choose an ethical and professional service provider. This can be done by checking his track record with other companies. Here are some things you need to look out for:

No Use of Sub Contractors
Choose a service provider that does not use sub contractors for executing the work. In addition you need to be diligent and keep monitoring the progress of the service provider throughout the project. Another important thing you need to ensure is to draft a professional contract that contains a clear “no sub contractor clause” within it.

Prioritize Customer Services
You need to make sure that your service provider should prioritize their customers’ needs in the best and all the work that you outsource to them is taken care of by their own team of trained professionals.

Secure Physical Location
If possible, visit your service provider’s company to check out their security arrangements. A professional service provider would have manned security at entry and exit points, surveillance cameras, not allow any removable storage devices and have only limited access of systems and information on a need to know basis.

Ensures Complete Data Security
In addition to ensuring that your data doesn’t leave the premises of the company, your service provider should ensure data security by incorporating security measures like data encryption protocols, multi-tiered application architecture, design level security, safeguards, firewall protected networks, sterilized e-mail servers, denial of access procedure and multi model alerts. It’s always advisable to go for the vendor which not only uses the latest state of technology for your work but also has trained personal to handle such software with firmness and accuracy.

Expert Data Entry Professionals
Medical data entry is a great deal different from regular data entry jobs. It requires a strong medical background and effective knowledge of clinical research and trials. Moreover, you need to ensure that the people working on your data are educated on the importance of being HIPAA and HITECH compliant. Also for better results in specific types of data entry tasks, it might be preferred that before initiating a project some customized training pertaining the nature of the project is provided to the team appointed to be dealing with that project. Such trainings can be given jointly by the two outsourcing partners.

The above points act as the checklist for verifying and finalizing the service provider before signing the deal with him. Also the terms of contract should be designed in a manner to cover the data security and confidentiality clause as well apart from the legal and financial terms. Even a penalty clause and a risk management plan should be well discussed between the two partners to be able to properly handle the negative effects in case of any leakage of information/data or breach of any terms of contract.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Pooja Puri is a Health Care industry professional with a Masters degree in Clinical Research. She is associated with a Clinical Research Organization located in New Delhi. She writes articles for KPO firm that has expertise in providing data mining and data entry for clinical trial work to major pharmaceutical companies.

Data is a vital in the form of information and data entry is the procedure of entering data in to any source either online or offline. It can be done manually or automatically, in manual entering a person will enter a data and in automatic software or tool with enter data. There are numerous types of data entry such as insurance claim, legal formalities, and entry for cards, books, and images. Two major types of it are online and offline.

Online entering of data is useful for entering e-books, entering websites, keeping track of credit and debit card transactions, submitting and processing online forms, entering images in various formats. Entering of data into software applications, database is necessary now for printing or effective use of data as information. It is also useful for keeping track of several hundred websites or URL collection etc. Offline data entry is useful in document entry, excel entry, MS access entry etc. for quick access.

Image entry is also one of the useful methods of entering data. In image entry images should entered to include photographs, attachments, magazine, yellow pages, novels, books, scanned images is necessary for card entry also. Insurance claim entry is method to enter data of insurance holders for the companies and record of holders data and records.

Well known data entry methods also include text, numeric and alphanumeric entry. These all are also done either automatically or manually. In any of the form either text, numeric or alphanumeric entry can be done from scanned images, entry in encyclopedia, dictionaries, warranty periods, market research data, reports, questionnaires, survey form etc.

Individual or a company knows importance of data entry in this era of information. Many times it requires to process data which may internal or external. It also required for managing and increasing existing client database, type recorded audio in any application, word or spreadsheet, E-books and websites, or keeping track of transactions of cards and insurance claims. It is important for any routine tasks of organization.

There are several websites (i.e. http://www.hitechexport.com) which are extremely useful for small or emerging organizations for data entry requirements.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Mark Peterson is a quality controller at Hi-Tech Export A fastest growing company that handle all kind of small or large data entry projects. They have completed 17 years in this data entry field successfully. They assure about their 99.98% accurate data entry services.